Just reading J.K.'s Secret Muses - Biography of Frederick Ashton. Just want to say how grateful I am for her detailed descriptions of the ballets he choreographed. I am a newbie and in fact have only seen a few ballets live - although my DVD collection is costing the equivalent of a small nation's GNP.
So to have someone talk me through the rationale and intention of various ballets is a great gift. I have wallowed in rg's Ballet 101 descriptions and really just want more and more written works where I am led through an understanding of the steps and their import. So much ballet criticism seems trivial to me particularly News items ( I comb old reviews). I would love to see someone write more scholarly evaluations than are available to me. Why doesnt someone write pedagogical short pamplets on individual ballets?I have the Cambridge companion but I want MORE and more!
Just bye the bye the biography gives great background detail about the first half of 20th century too.

Whetherwax - get David Vaughan's "The Ballets of Frederick Ashton." It is not a biography, but a catalog of the works that goes into significant detail about their making. If that's what you're after, there's no better source.

This book doesnt exist in Melbourne!. And with the exchange rate now 87 cents in the dollar I am loath to visit Amazon - the UK exchange rate is even more crippling. However all is not lost!! I am so grateful to youtube and Ballet Talk. These sites can work brilliantly for us lonely antipodeans. I was looking at Diane and Acteon PDD on youtube and found Katherine Healy and M. Guerra(sp) !!!! I was so impressed I looked her up here on BT and found out about the skating(!) but was also led to a lecture she had given on being coached by Frederick Ashton in Romeo and Juliet and so added a little more to my knowlege. Electronic world I bless you. Thanks Leigh W. for your recommendation.

For 20 Balanchine ballets: Nancy Goldner, Balanchine Variations (Univ. Press of Florida, 2008).

I've been following a couple of the Balanchine videos I have with this by my side. (So far: 4T's, the short Apollo, Nutcracker, and Concerto Barocco). I've also compared it with memories of fairly recent performances of of Serenade, Donizetti, Prodigal Son, Sonnambula, Jewels and Square Dance. And distant but still vivid memories of Agon.

Goldner knows the works intimately. Here eye is great. Her language is simple, clear, to the point and amazingly helpful.

It looks like the State Library of Victoria has it so if you don't live too far away you may be able to read it there or request it from your local library as an inter-library loan. Although to do the latter there would probably be charges.

Vaughan, David, 1924-
Frederick Ashton and his ballets
London : A. and C. Black, 1977.
Call Number: 792.8 As3

Thanks Innopac. I had stupidly overlooked Libraries. I do use City library but it has only a few ballet books, so i tend to think I must buy.
Yes Vaughan is there, AND Bart, Ms Goldner is there too. thanks.

DV's book is worth the trouble of an interlibrary loan -- erudite, clear, comprehensive and very, very readable.

Absolutely. The two books, Vaughan's and Kavanagh's, complement each other very well.

I have David Vaughn's book and it's indispensable. It is also overloaded with incredible pictures -- rehearsal pictures, stage pictures -- of the original productions, with the original casts. I picked it up for $20 at Strand bookstore.

DV added some updates when his 1977 book was reprinted by dancebooks in 1999. the photos in the newer publication are somewhat thinner of resolution and print-quality in the newer printing.